I got a nice surprise yesterday. Due to some issues at the new job (and boy, do they have some issues), I found myself with an unexpected day off. And looking out the window, I also found an unexpected, end-of-season heat wave providing near-perfect riding conditions — and a perfect opportunity to take advantage of it.

So I lubed the chain, wiped off the grit and sand from my last few rides, and took off for the coast. I thought I might take advantage of the weather by riding the entire Marvin Braude Bikeway, from my home in Westwood up to the northern end of the path at Will Rogers State Beach, then south through Santa Monica and Venice, around the Marina, and down along the South Bay section through to where it ends at Palos Verdes, and back again — 59 miles from door-to-door.

I knew I really wasn’t up to it after sitting behind a desk for the last two-plus weeks, with only one day in the saddle since mid-September. But knowing how rare days like this really are, and not knowing when I might have the opportunity again, I vowed to press ahead — knowing full well the price I was going to pay. (On the other hand, that was nothing compared to this guy’s next ride.)

And pay I did.

I spent the next three hours after my ride completely spent, stretched out on the couch, and twitching and jumping every few minutes due to the frequent leg cramps. Between an amino acid, protein, watermelon and banana shake, a couple Excedrin and lots of caffeine, the cramps finally subsided, though the aches and pains lasted through the night, keeping me awake much of the night.

But I take full responsibility. I knew exactly what I was getting into, and made a conscious decision to do it anyway.

And believe me, it was worth it.

Of course, it’s easy to assume responsibility when the only consequence is a few aches and pains. It’s much harder when there are real consequences involved.

Like my road rage incident a few years back. I had no problem at all blaming the woman who deliberately hit my with her car for refusing to share the road, and taking her anger out on me. But it took me years to accept the flat-out stupidity of flipping off the angry driver behind me.

She bears full responsibility for her actions – despite the fact that she got away with it. But I have to take responsibility for my own actions, as well.

Or take civil disobedience. From Thoreau to Saul Allinsky, civil disobedience has been recognized as a powerful tool for change. But a key component of civil disobedience is a willingness to accept the consequences of your actions — to intentionally break the law to protest its unjustness, knowing its full force will come to bear against you.

Gandhi understood that, as did Dr. King. Both were repeatedly subjected to jail, or worse. And both ultimately paid the highest possible price. But they both understood and accepted the risk, and the responsibility.

That part of the equation seems to be largely forgotten today.

At its core, Critical Mass is an act of civil disobedience. The riders routinely break traffic laws in a mass demonstration, in order to promote cycling and make bicyclists more visible and accepted, both by the public and by law enforcement.

But like any other act of civil disobedience, there can be consequences, from tickets for various traffic infractions— both justified, and unjust — to accidents and injuries, like what happened in Seattle awhile back. Whether right or wrong, deserved or otherwise, it is an entirely foreseeable consequence. And participating means accepting responsibility for the outcome, whatever that may be.

Of course, accepting your own responsibility does not absolve the other parties, either. They are wholly responsible for their actions, just as you are for your own.

So if a cop writes you an illegal or unfair ticket, you are perfectly entitled to fight it in any way necessary, whether through the court system, the departmental disciplinary system, the city government or the court of public opinion. Or if a driver gets tired of being corked and forces his way out through the cordon of riders, he can and should be held accountable for his actions.

Will gets that.

In his recent chin-first encounter with the rear of a minivan, he took full responsibility for looking down as he climbed a hill, and not paying attention where he was riding. Yet at the same time, he held the driver responsible for double-parking in the traffic lane when there was a parking space available right next to her.

So if you blow through a stop sign and get a ticket, it’s your own damn fault. If you run a red light when there’s traffic around, whatever happens is your responsibility – regardless of whether the drivers should have seen you or been able to stop in time.

They’re responsible for their actions, you’re responsible for yours.

And if you choose to ride without a helmet, or after dark without lights, or ride at dusk on the wrong side of the street, you have already accepted the consequences, whatever they may be. Because, by your actions, you are shifting responsibility for your safety to those around you — and they may not choose to assume it.

Or if, like me, you’ve been riding without licensing your bike — whether or not you were aware that it was even required — you are responsible for that if you happen to get stopped by the police.

As I’ve said before, the highest responsibility of any bicyclist is to ride safely; that is, to ride without causing undue risk to yourself or the people around you.

That does not necessarily mean obeying the law in every instance. It means assuming responsibility for your own safety, as well as the safety of other people who may be affected by your actions, and making the best possible choices for everyone involved. Sometimes that means stopping for the red light, and sometimes that means going through it. But whatever you do, doing it for a damn good reason.

I haven’t always done that myself, as that road rage incident, my encounter with the bees, and a few other accidents clearly indicate. But in each case, I’ve tried to learn from my mistakes, so I can make better decisions next time.

So stop and think when you get on your bike, and learn to ride safely.

A couple years ago, my wife and I decided to break in our new passports with our first overseas trip.

Actually, we were only planning to go to the East coast, until we learned we could spend a week in London for less than a comparable amount of time in New York. (Obviously, that was when the dollar still had a little residual value compared to the pound or euro.)

I had assumed that the highlight of our trip might be the British Museum or Westminster Abbey, or maybe the day trip we’d planned to Paris on the Eurostar. But in retrospect, what stands out most was when the British people made me cry.

It happened as we toured St. Paul’s Cathedral — perhaps the most awe-inspiring edifice it has ever been my pleasure to set foot in, with the possible exception of an Anasazikiva.

Actually, it happened twice; the first came as we wandered through the apse behind the main alter, and stumbled on the American Memorial Chapel, dedicated to the American service men and women who were based on British soil during WWII and gave their lives to help keep Britain free. And yes, it brought tears to my eyes to experience the magnificence of the gratitude expressed by the British people in this most sacred of places.

Then we wondered down through the crypts below, past markers indicating the final resting places of John Dunne, Lord Nelson, Winston Churchill, Samuel Johnson, Henry Moore, T.E. Lawrence — better known as Lawrence of Arabia — and Florence Nightingale, just to name a few.

And there, amid some of the most revered names in Western history, was the grave of William S. (Billy) Fiske — a lowly American pilot who died fighting with the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, before the U.S. even joined the war. And I’m not ashamed to say that it made me cry that this man, unknown in his own country, would be remembered with reverence in such a place of honor.

And even more, that the British people would feel such a responsibility to honor those who fought shoulder-to-shoulder with them to keep their country free, and together the other Allied nations, free the world from Nazi domination.

I suppose one reason it had such an impact on me was that my own father was one of those young Yanks stationed on English soil, before joining the invasion of France in the days just after D-Day. Thankfully, he was one of the lucky ones who made it home.

Growing up, I must have asked him a million questions about the war, but he never wanted to talk about it.

Oh, he’d tell me the funny stories, like being assigned to guard a French whorehouse, as the girls kept trying to temp him to come inside. Or the time he and a few other soldiers drove through the French countryside drinking champagne from the bottle, while they tossed confiscated German grenades out of the back, one at a time — only to find out later that the front had shifted, and they’d driven the whole way behind enemy lines.

But when I asked if he’d ever shot anyone, or if anyone in his unit had been killed, he wouldn’t answer. But the tears in his eyes told me all I needed to know.

He explained that when the war ended, he’d been stationed on Okinawa, preparing for the planned D-Day style invasion of Japan, an invasion in which his unit had been told to expect 100% casualties. And I realized that he owed his life — and I, my very existence — to those bombs.

He finished by saying, “We all did terrible things during the war. But we did what we had to do.”

It was then I realized, for the first time, that he had assumed personal responsibility for the things he’d had to do. And would go to his grave bearing that awful weight, and asking God’s forgiveness for the rest of his days.

And for the first time, I began to understand my father.

Contrast that with today, when it seems that no one takes responsibility for anything.

At the end of WWII, we had a president who insisted that the buck stopped on his desk, and who assumed personal responsibility for making the decision to use atomic weapons.

Today, we have an administration in which no one ever assumes responsibility, and no one is ever held accountable. Not even for a war in which no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, and no connection to 9-11 ever existed, despite what we were told. And which will leave yet another generation of service men and women carrying the scars of their service for the rest of their lives, and countless lives and families, both here and in Iraq, disrupted forever.

This follows a president who looked the American people straight in the eye, and lied about an otherwise insignificant tryst in the Oval Office.

We live in a world in which gilded CEOs can bring the national economy to its knees and escape with multi-million dollar golden parachutes. Where politicians seek political cover rather than stepping up to make the difficult choices they were elected to make. Where we’re assured that campaign donations don’t buy access. Or votes. Where a vice presidential candidate is deemed qualified for the nation’s second highest office because she can see a foreign country from her state. And plausible deniability is the watchword of the day.

A world where genuine honesty and accountability belong on the Endangered Species List.